


Family

by R00bs_Teacup



Series: Platonic Valentine gifts 2017 [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Domestic, Fluff, M/M, with some h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 18:16:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9778637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R00bs_Teacup/pseuds/R00bs_Teacup
Summary: Arthur is trying to be romantic. He's not terrible at it, with a little help.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Polomonkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polomonkey/gifts).



> For Polomonkey, my Elyan buddy and awesome person.

“Gwen, I need your help,” Arthur says, pushing into her office and dumping himself into her visitor chair with the saddest look he can conjure. She doesn’t even look up, so he makes a sad whimpering noise, too. 

“Just tell me, so I can say yes or no,” she says, tapping away, marking some essay or emailing some sad lonely undergrad or something else of utmost importance that isn’t really important at all because even at university level teachers can’t be THAT important. 

“Elyan,” Arthur says, sighing. 

“No,” Gwen says. “I am not helping you and my brother date.”

“No! I just... need you to help me be romantic. For vally’s day,” Arthur says. “Veeeeeillll- eeeeee. Veevee. V day. The big V.”

Gwen stops typing and Looks until Arthur stops listing. He gives a hopeful little look, and she sighs, going back to typing. 

“Ask Merlin, he likes that shite,” Gwen says. 

“He said no already,” Arthur whines. “Morgana threw a shoe at me. You’re my last hope, Gwennie.”

“No. Ask Lance.”

“No, he’s too.”

“Too what?”

“Just… tooooo,” Arthur says, drawing it out, slumping further, melting into the chair, word becoming a groan, head flopping back. The door opens and Lance comes in. Arthur smiles. “Hullo Lancelot.”

“Come on,” Lance says. “Merlin texted. I’m gonna help you plan.”

Arthur scrambles up and wraps himself around Lance, smushing him. Lance laughs and hugs him back. 

“So. Elyan. What does he like?” Lance asks, steering Arthur towards the door. 

“Bye Gwen!” Arthur calls, not looking back. “I dunno. Books. Chocolate. Me!”

“Dinner, a gift, maybe an evening out?” Lance suggests. 

“I should take him to the opera,” Arthur says. 

“He hates the opera,” Lance says. 

“Yes, yes. Not the opera. A music… thing. That is not the opera. Roses! They are romantic.”

“He’s allergic to roses,” Lance says, hand in the small of Arthur’s back to keep him moving, toward Lance’s office in the history department. Brookes is little. English and history basically sharing a corridor. 

“Oh yeah. Lilies?”

“Funeral flowers.”

“There are no flowers! I can’t get flowers! Lancelot!”

“Relax, there are more than two sorts of flowers. We’ll cope,” Lance soothes, hardly laughing at all. 

Somehow, they do cope. It’s a close thing, and Arthur ends up lying under Lance’s desk with a cool cloth over his eyes to recover. Lance says he’s just being dramatic, but Elyan walks over from the art department and collects Arthur anyway, and Arthur gets to sit in Elyan’s studio space and chat to his students for the afternoon, which is always fun. He takes his clothes off save his trousers and poses for one of the life drawing classes, too, when Elyan’s model is too drunk to turn up. Or something. He manages to not let a single thing slip about his valentines plans. 

He manages a whole week of silence, then on Saturday he picks Elyan up from lunch at Gwen’s, which Elyan insists is not a family obligation and never involves thrown shoes (Arthur doesn’t believe that- family lunches usually have projectiles). He gets nervous on the drive to the planetarium and starts talking in his poshest voice about work, until Elyan puts the radio on and tunes into opera. Arthur always knows he better shut up when Elyan picks out opera in preference, because it means he’s skirting the edge of his father’s opinions. He shuts up and goes scarlet. He manages to look over at Elyan, though, and it’s not him that’s made Elyan choose opera. Elyan’s resting his head against the window, and he looks sad. 

“Did you have an argument with Gwen?” Arthur asks, pulling up the red light, suddenly calm. He rests a hand on Elyan’s thigh when Elyan doesn’t answer. “I’m taking you out.”

“I know,” Elyan says, smiling, turning his head a little. “You told me.”

“I did? I thought I did so well this time,” Arthur says, smiling back and patting Elyan’s knee. 

“Told me last week,” Elyan says. “That we were going to do something and go somewhere to look at the stars. The observatory? And then, well, you were in Lance’s office so I assume he helped, which means dinner at Bill’s, because he has a thing about Bill’s. You’ve been playing this CD all week, which means we’re going to the opera, except Lance helped so not the opera. Something musical. And you know me, and know what I like, so probably the cello recital that’s tonight at Hollywell music rooms.”

“Oh,” Arthur says, disappointed. He perks up though. “Not Bill’s. I overruled.”

“We’re not going to Burger King, are we?” Elyan asks. 

“Obviously not,” Arthur says. “You’ll see.”

The light turns green, and Arthur has to take his hands away to drive. He keeps a watchful eye on Elyan, the rest of the way. He rests against the window and watches the day turn gloomy. He smiles when he looks Arthur’s way, which is good. The sadness isn’t about Gwen, he tells Arthur about their fights. Which means it’s something longer. Arthur replays the morning, and Elyan hadn’t seemed fantastic then, either. Maybe a bad dream. Arthur parks up and makes sure his permit for work is on the dash, then climbs out of the car. He takes Elyan’s hand and then stops, pressing a kiss to his cheek, touching his temple, his shoulder, waiting for him to meet Arthur’s eyes. 

“Do you want this?” Arthur asks. 

“Yeah, show me the heavens,” Elyan says. “If they exist in all this cloud.”

“I’m not showing you that, it’s barely evening, let alone dark enough for - I’ve been working on some photographs. You’ll like them,” Arthur says. 

He takes Elyan to his work space, letting them in with his key card, and to where he’s been working most of the morning. The Denys Wilkinson building is ugly as sin, but Arthur’s made it romantic by sticking a pink sticky shaped like a heart over his desk. He shows Elyan the sky on the high def screen and talks to him about the things he’s been doing with the maths. Elyan actually understands the math, which is the first thing Arthur loved about him. Arthur loves maths, and loves that Elyan can listen to him going on about it and be interested. They sit around for about an hour, going over Arthur’s work. Arthur show Elyan how he’s taking apart his sections of sky until they’re numbers and equations to work with. Elyan sketches as he listens, Arthur’s face appearing and vanishing from numbers under Elyan’s pencil. Arthur talks quietly and keeps a hand on Elyan’s back, rubbing gently, keeping him close and warm. 

“I love you,” he murmurs, when he’s done, and Elyan’s pencil stills. “You’re brilliant. You’re such an intelligent man, Elyan. You make beautiful things out of my numbers.”

“Where are we having dinner?” Elyan asks, turning away from Arthur.

“You’re also beautiful,” Arthur says, softly, holding Elyan by the waist, pressing a kiss to his neck and to his cheek and his nose and his eyelid. Elyan shuts his eyes with a sigh, leaning into Arthur. “You give me everything my heart could ever desire.”

“I worry,” Elyan says. 

“I know,” Arthur says. “I do. I worry too, about every single thing, all the time, non stop. I have anxiety. I understand worrying about things. And feeling stupid about it.”

“I do feel stupid,” Elyan says, looking at Arthur again, a little rueful now. “I know you don’t mind any of it, that you like me fine as is. I want to give you more, though.”

Arthur grins and whispers the word ‘sex’ into Elyan’s ear, just to see him pale over his cheeks with flush, to feel him heat, to be shoved away. He laughs, and Elyan punches his shoulder, stalking off back to the car. Arthur gives chase and catches him up, stumbling, thudding into the side of the car. 

“We’re walking,” Arthur says, linking their arms. “I give not one single damn, El.”

“I know,” Elyan says, defensive, falling into step. “Where are you taking me? Fool.”

“Pub grub, Eagle and Child. I know you, baby,” Arthur says, squeezing himself closer. 

“Ah thank fuck for that. I was afraid you’d go all high falooting,” Elyan says. 

He likes the dinner, and the cello music. Personally, Arthur thinks Elyan plays better. In the livingroom at home, swaying into his instrument as if it’s part of him, making it fill the flat with such a rich sound. Elyan likes the recital, but he’s still sad. Arthur sets the pace back to the car as slow and meandering. It’s not too far, and it’s not a bad walk. It’s dark and cold, but they walk close, and Elyan seems ok with it. He sighs, and leans closer as they cross by Jowetts walk to Parks Road. 

“I want this to be more, Arthur,” Elyan says. “More official. I don’t know. More real.”

“Do you want to live with me?” Arthur asks. “Or we could get married. I’d like to marry you.”

“That is not a romantic proposal.”

“Am I to get down on one knee?”

“No. It’s fine. I want to do both. But it’s not what I meant. I want a family, and I just… can’t see that happening.”

Arthur’s quiet for a while, thinking about it. He’s quiet all the way back to the car. Gwen and Morgana have two adopted kids, and one Morgana gave birth to. Arthur isn’t sure he wants to do either of those things. He hums and starts the car, and Elyan rests against the window again. 

“You know what I’d like?” Arthur says. 

“No. Go ahead,” Elyan says, sounding resigned. 

“I want a family too, El. Obviously. I’m saying yes to that. I’m happy to adopt, too, or whatever it is you want. But I’d like to foster.”

“Oh,” Elyan says, and he’s finally smiling properly. “Yeah. Yeah, ok.”

“Good. I have a present for you.”

“More?”

“I’m being romantic. I went overboard. We know this about me,” Arthur says. “In the glove compartment.”

Elyan opens the envelope and finds the key, and the ring, and laughs. 

“It’s like a magic trick,” he says. 

“Nah. It’s not an engagement ring. It’s to go on your thumb, like mine. Me and Merlin and Morgana got them at the end of school, it was a stupid friends thing, but I want… it’s to mean something, yeah? They’re my family, you know?”

“Yes, I know. I understand the gesture, thank you. I have a present for you, too. It’s at home. Waiting.”

Arthur likes surprises, and he likes presents, so he spends the drive up to Headington grilling Elyan about what it is he’s got. He runs up the stairs to their flat and into the kitchen, but it’s not there. It’s in the livingroom, wrapped in paper with tasteful patterns. Arthur tears it off and laughs, then looks at what it is he’s got. Elyan’s leaning in the doorway, smiling at him, amused. It’s a pair of cufflinks in a posh box. And a note. An invitation card, Arthur realises. He grins. 

“I would very much love to be your plus one to all future events,” he says, getting up and going to Elyan. “Forever and ever.”

“Amen,” Elyan says, sarcastic and rude. Arthur kisses it away, laughing, lips buzzing against Elyan’s. “I love you too.”

“I know. Always, right? To be married, it’s to love me forever.”

“Yes, dear,” Elyan says, rolling his eyes. Arthur cups his face, cradling him, gazing. 

“And you. You, I will love, I do love. Beyond anything. I just absolutely adore you, you are spectacular. My valentine.”

“Ok, you ruined it. I’m going to bed. Your valentine,” Elyan scoffs, then laughs and kisses Arthur. “Beyond anything. You sop.”

“I know. I’m gone.”

“Totally. I love it.”


End file.
